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Well, as you all know I’ve been terrible keeping up with posting. Now I have been busy with school work, learning UDK and practicing creating levels, but I’ve been very busy with video games as well. Though I have posted about all of them here.

First I was very involved with Half-Life 2. I got it new for the 360 and it is by far my favorite FPS I have played, and I don’t like FPSs all that much. It had a lot more depth and puzzle to it than a war shooter.

Then I got caught up in replaying Portal, since it was right there on The Orange Box. After that I just had to replay Portal 2, always good fun. From then on whenever I was doing my homework I would listen to the ending credits songs of both games over and over. Both are good music, hilarious, and fun to listen to.

After that I was wondering what to do next when I picked up Pikmin to replay. I did it in about a day, then like with Portal and Portal 2 I just had to play Pikmin 2. That one took me a few days, but was even better than I remember.

Now the Pikmin games are RTS, and that really got me in the mood for more of that. I had StarCraft II but had only played like a third of it when I drifted away from it. I picked it back up with vigor and finished it pretty soon. It is a ton of fun, however it got me in the mood for WarCraft III. I set SC2 aside and picked WC3 back up.

Now I spent a lot of time on WC3, I had only completely beaten it once, and had not beat The Frozen Throne. I finally got through TFT for the first time, I barely remembered any of it. It was finally over, but I still wanted RTS, so I have picked SC2 back up and am working on honing my skills and getting the achievements.

Needless to say I have hardly watched any anime at all in like a month; and barely have kept up with my manga. Actually I think I have only watched one episode or something, an anime a friend recommended called Hyouka. He thought I might like it since I’m a mystery fan. I don’t know after one episode. The characters seem a bit cliche. We’ll see.

Well, now it’s back to SC2 with Murder, She Wrote. The achievement collecting is going well.

Since I beat Portal again recently I picked up Portal 2 and beat it in a few hours as well.

Portal 2 is great fun, definitely polished up from the first. There is a lot more story which makes the game even better and tie things up from the first. They also have added mechanics which make it a lot more dynamic.

Repulsion gel makes you bounce, propulsion gel makes you go fast, and a white gel creates portal surfaces. There are also light bridges, spring boards, and light beams you can float in. They add great depth to the puzzles.

This time around Portal 2 didn’t take me too long, but the first time I got pretty stumped a few times. The levels are longer and more complex.

Portal 2 also has a co-op mode, this is a ton of fun to play with friends. People can put their heads together and work their way through puzzles.

So I finally started Half-Life 2 on The Orange Box. I kind of wanted to do Half-Life 1 to get the story and everything, but I found out it’s not on mac, or any console I own. I do have access to windows, but it’s a pain to only play a game on it.

I’m liking Half-Life 2 so far, I have not played very much. I only just got all my weapon options filled up. I like shooters that are more than just shooting in a war-zone, like Halo or CoD. I’m not sure if they are called anything different, action shooters? But the player must solve puzzles and navigate terrain and interact with people instead of just looking down the barrel of a gun.You can also use a crowbar, that’s good fun.

I’m familiar with the controls and how the physics work, since they are identical to Portal, so it wasn’t hard to get used to. But I had no idea what was going on for story, made me wish I had done Half-Life 1. I read a synopsis on Wikipedia though, I hope it’s enough. I always enjoy a good Dystopian regime setting. Though I’m not sure how it fits in with Portal either, I know they are supposed to be the same world.

A small complaint I have with this and similar games are the blandness of the setting. Everything is just stained concrete etc etc. It never feels like you are going anywhere new or progressive. I like more of a change. Overall I am still liking Portal more, I drift toward puzzle games more anyway.

So today I finally decided to really start Hero Mode in Skyward Sword. For those of you who don’t know Hero Mode is an extension of Zelda: Skyward Sword. After you beat the game in normal mode, which I did some time ago, you can erase that file and start the game over in hero mode.

Hero mode has a few more challenges; damage is done double to you, so anything that took away half a heart now takes away a whole heart, etc. etc. Also there are no hearts and no heart flowers in the wild. All health comes from sleeping/sitting or potions. Though carrying a heart medal will make hearts appear in the wild again. Also the skyward strike starts out at full power. And when you reach the point of fully powering up your sword, the strike is charged instantly.

I wasn’t sure about this at first. Taking away all hearts in the wild doesn’t really seem like it would make it more challenging, just more annoying. Lots of hearts can be lost accidentally, and it would just require more trips back and forth to towns and resting places. But if they come back with the heart medal I’m looking more forward to it.

I do wish they would change a little more though. I liked Wind Wakers “Hero Mode” You wore different clothes the whole time, started with the colored picto box, and could understand the hyrulian language. Though it did not really have anything to make it more challenging, it was just different. I wish Skyward Sword and thrown in some more fun stuff like that, not affecting the gameplay, but just interesting. Consequently Wind Waker should have had more in it to make it more challenging.